When I Say Keep It, You Say Real

 A week ago, I was sitting on the beach in 30 degree weather, soaking up the last bit of sun with a bunch of youth before we left Florida for another year. We had a fantastic week. SouthBound is a highlight of the year for many of our youth and staff, and this year did not let us down.


This year our youth were challenged to "Keep It Real" by our speaker, Laura Bronson, of Keep It Real Ministries. This was not just the theme for the week, but quickly became the overall attitude and lifestyle around the camp. Youth connected in a way that we hadn't seen in a while. If a youth was hanging around the fringes, there were always one or two peers who brought them into the group, breaking down many of the cliques and boundaries that often exist in the teen world. There were so many deep discussions this year, and the focus around keeping it real and sharing our stories certainly helped youth think about important things in their lives. We talked to youth who wanted to know if they had a story to tell, youth whose stories involved trauma and tragedy, and youth who had deep questions about life, God, and how the two mix. Youth prayed for each other, a treasure we hold on to when we work with teens who are all over the place in their journey with Christ. Youth read Scripture to their peers, and shared about their faith journey in small groups. It was an amazing year. 


Of course, as with any Youth for Christ event, we were up to our usual camp shenanigans. More than one dinner was interrupted by hilarious melodramas featuring superheroes with wacky hair or Harry Potter superfans. A mysterious green rubber snake made its way into a few bunkbeds (mine included). And, we spent crazy amounts of time on the beach, wakeboarding and tubing, doing our best Baywatch impressions, and getting thrown in the water.

This trip is amazing, and it seems to get better every year. As a staff, it leaves me fired up as we return to our usual programs this week, and I'm excited for what the weekend will bring. Many youth were profoundly inspired by our week in Florida, and we look forward to growing in our relationships with them. Here's some pictures:

Tubing with our cow friends.

The wacky hair superheroes.

Minute To Win It YFC style

A dramatic presentation of the Prodigal Son.

YMCA forever!

Typgoon Lagoon

St. Patrick's day with some of the female leaders

St. Pete's Beach

Our speaker, Laura, tagged shirts for all of us.

Evening session

Friday's relay led to some swamped kayaks

The whole group

And We're Back!

We arrived safely back home on Saturday night, and I was hoping to post much sooner, but as it would happen, I have been dealing with the after effects of spending March Break with 50 teenagers. I affectionately call this incredibly sore throat "The Outbreak", as many of our staff are feeling similar symptoms. That said, SouthBound 2010 was an incredible trip, and it allowed us many opportunities to connect in significant ways with the youth from Collingwood, and those from around the province.

Particularly cool this year was a change of venue for us. After many years of hosting the camp in Melrose, Florida, we opted to go a little further south to Camp Gilead in Polk City. From the moment we got there, many of us were not only impressed with the grounds, but also with the facilities that were available for us to engage in activities with the youth, and many of them built peer relationships over games of carpetball, dodgeball, and Quarto (which is my new favorite game, read about it here). Our campers are set up in teams that are put together at random, and Aaron and I were privileged to lead Team F, or the Fegyptians as we were better known. Throughout the week we participated in the "Rejected Olympics", which involved many bizarre games and team cheers (ours was oddly similar to that of Team E, the Egyptians, but hey, there are only so many songs about walking like Egyptians out there.)(Our names were complete coincidences, for serious).

We purposely include a lot of free time in our schedule, and most afternoons we have open. This is where a lot of the informal conversations with the youth happen, and where relationships really deepen. That, and we don't mind sitting on the beach, even if we are in winter jackets. Each evening we gather in our teams for small group discussion, which leads into our evening sessions. We were joined by our colleague Kevin, who talked about identity and branding, more specifically, what you express to other people. We had amazing discussions about the masks that we wear, the people that we try to be, and the people that we are. We found this to be an important issue for many of our youth, much like it was for us when we were teenagers. Aaron and I found that the conversations that we had with our youth in small group stretched well into the rest of the week. At one point, one of the guys on our team was walking with us and said, "All that stuff about the masks that we wear, I haven't stopped thinking about it all night!".

One night we had some time that we previously didn't at the last camp (we were significantly closer to Orlando this time). A few leaders wondered if maybe we should host a hot topics session, where the youth could ask the leaders questions. Over twenty youth showed up, and wondered about where God is in the midst of pain and loss, the Bible, terrorism, love, and many other issues that were important to them. The discussion lasted nearly two hours! For sure, this will become a part of our regular schedule.

Overall, this was an incredible trip, and now, I'll leave you with some pictures.

Human Bowling!

By far, one of the more popular activities, the water tube

The whole crew

Team F

Our gang from Collingwood

SouthBound!

It's getting to be that time of year again. We are getting ready for our March Break camp, SouthBound. This week I've been taking stock of my sunscreen and aloe vera, board shorts, and this year, pants, all going into my suitcase for our annual trip to Florida. This is for fairly obvious reasons, one of our favorite trips of the year. We have great experiences with our youth, and I'll be honest, the setting isn't all that bad either. But perhaps a little deeper than the surface is my ulterior motive: to create memories, to share experiences, and to open doors to conversations that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Back story: when Aaron and I were in college, we blew off studying over reading week to join his family in Florida for a family vacation. It was a great week, but with one fairly significant trade off: we were poor students who drove junky cars that would barely make it to the border, so we were left with one choice, Greyhound go anywhere passes for $200. These passes took you anywhere you wanted in North America, but you had to travel an exhausting route. Since then, I have never driven through Alabama on my way to Florida. All in all, we spent nearly 80 hours on the bus, and all of the stops and passengers blended together by the time we reached our 3am destination.

That said, the first year that I took the bus to Florida, Aaron stayed home, and I was having flashbacks. That was also the year that the huge snowstorm hit, and it took us nearly eight hours just to reach the border. However, that time on the bus with 50 youth was amazing! We sang songs, we played baseball up the aisle, we attempted to play cards, and we developed friendships all by the time we reached our camp, more than 30 hours later. It is a great thing to be able to accompany a youth on their first time to Florida (or at least their first time to Florida with us). There is so much to see, from the first gator, to the ocean, to the spectacles of the amusement parks. They are making new friends. They stay up at night talking with their cabins. Our evening program shares the Gospel with them, but not in a bang-you-over-the-head kind of way. Instead, they hear stories, of real life, and of God's presence throughout it. Then our staff listen, and ask questions. It has been amazing seeing kids lives transformed through the community built on this trip.

And in the middle of all of this, we make memories that the youth are still talking about years later. I have kids who come and ask me every year if they can still go, even though they are too old. SouthBound is a weird, wonderful, crazy thing. This week is a busy one, for sure. I am so looking forward to being crammed on a bus with these guys, and seeing our new friendships come out the other side. And that's my ulterior motive.